The question is: what for? They are not a charity case. Well, ok, they are, but there are people more in need and more deserving, like, I don't know, drell?
While the drell could use some help, Kepral Syndrome requires a tech to fix (which is behind Advanced Xenobiology, and "requires assistance"). Also, the drell are being cared for by the hanar already. Their situation may not be ideal, but they're not sailing around in centuries-old ships hoping their environmental suits don't get punctured exposing them to all the stuff their body can no longer survive without help.
Why do you say the drell are more deserving of aid?
If you start asking about deserving, I'm sure people will be asking why you don't think there are 18 million humans (0.14% of the galactic pop) in really shitty conditions - which honestly, there probably are given what's implied about the situation outside the best developed areas on Earth and the colonies.
Well, from the practical standpoint, they are likely to be more receptive of any help given and less likely to misuse it. Remember "when creators thought they could win, they attacked 100% percent of times" is what Legion tells us for why there are only 18 million quarians left - because until their numbers were reduced by that much, they kept attacking. Now, I find a lot of what he shows us to be at least suspect (because f*ck no, it doesn't work like that with recordings - there's no objective reason for us to see suited quarians in a f*cking glorified videotape), but that one piece of info I can believe given what we saw of them, or at least their government. Any improvement of quarian situation is likely to result in them trying to use newly acquired resources to fight geth. Which is not something I want.
This is actually one of the reasons I keep mentioning those FTL-less ships. It gives quarians stuff they can't really use to fight geth.
The 'cure' for the drell situation is actually rather trivial; drell come from an extraordinarily arid planet, and habitation on a planet as humid as the hanar homeworld in the conditions hanar find pleasing (that is, as wet as possible) is murder on their lungs.
Just convincing the hanar to insist that the drell should leave the planet for a more arid place and ensuring that the drell agree to it would lessen the incidence of Keprals by orders of magnitude, as the origin of the disease simply is no longer an issue.
The 'cure' for the drell situation is actually rather trivial; drell come from an extraordinarily arid planet, and habitation on a planet as humid as the hanar homeworld in the conditions hanar find pleasing (that is, as wet as possible) is murder on their lungs.
Just convincing the hanar to insist that the drell should leave the planet for a more arid place and ensuring that the drell agree to it would lessen the incidence of Keprals by orders of magnitude, as the origin of the disease simply is no longer an issue.
Even opening contact with the Drell homeworld and trying to rebuild would probably help a lot.
According wo wiki, there are only a few thousand Drell on their homeworld left. The damage there is mostly acidic seas and depleted topsoil from over-industrialization. I'm fairly sure Paragon Industries alone could rebuild a patch of land large enough to house the Kahje-Drell comfortably and re-terraform the place to full habitability. Really, if it's just the pH value of the seas and topsoil, it's even easy. We don't have to do an entire atmosphere or something.
Importing nutrients from asteroid mining to enrich the soil, and having arc-powered filtration stations (or gene-engineered algae) should suffice to repair the seas. Then we have to repopulate the biosphere a bit, which might be hard depending on how many samples the Hanar took before the total collapse, but worst case we do something artificial.
The only limiter is if the Drell are even interested. But if we cure Kepralls, build them a badass fleet and give them more Prothean goodies, the Hanar might be well inclined to prod the Drell into accepting.
On the topic of non-lethal weapons: What about the swarms the Collectors used? Those are fairly bullshit, all things considered.
The 'cure' for the drell situation is actually rather trivial; drell come from an extraordinarily arid planet, and habitation on a planet as humid as the hanar homeworld in the conditions hanar find pleasing (that is, as wet as possible) is murder on their lungs.
Just convincing the hanar to insist that the drell should leave the planet for a more arid place and ensuring that the drell agree to it would lessen the incidence of Keprals by orders of magnitude, as the origin of the disease simply is no longer an issue.
Barring that? Nanotech filters. I mean, there were nanotech dietary supplements in canon. Developing a simple device, either installable with a simple walk-in operation or even just swallowable that would deploy in their airways (not lungs, but on the path to lungs) and dry the air passing through it should be relatively trivial. Hell, with superalloys (ie programmable matter) it might even be as simple as developing a material that lets oxygen and nitrogen through, but prevents water from passing it.
On the whole giving Jack to our parents, I'm not so certain that's a good idea. Jack is dangerous, is going to need constant supervision, and more than capable of killing people in a fit of pique. Revy can sort of get around that due to dozens of armed guards in power armor. I mean, it's probably going to be a case where Revy goes to her parents for advice to help her raise Jack, but in order for her parents to reasonably take care of Jack, we'd probably have to massively increase security on their house, get a guards' barracks on site, and potentially hire a live in psychologist. At that point, all we're doing is foisting a massive amount of issues on our parents, placing them in unnecessary danger, and undermining any advantages our parents would provide. Trying to put her in anything remotely resembling a traditional household has a whole bunch of issues.
On the whole giving Jack to our parents, I'm not so certain that's a good idea. Jack is dangerous, is going to need constant supervision, and more than capable of killing people in a fit of pique. Revy can sort of get around that due to dozens of armed guards in power armor. I mean, it's probably going to be a case where Revy goes to her parents for advice to help her raise Jack, but in order for her parents to reasonably take care of Jack, we'd probably have to massively increase security on their house, get a guards' barracks on site, and potentially hire a live in psychologist. At that point, all we're doing is foisting a massive amount of issues on our parents, placing them in unnecessary danger, and undermining any advantages our parents would provide. Trying to put her in anything remotely resembling a traditional household has a whole bunch of issues.
We are going to have to hire a psychologist no matter if Revy or her parents adopts Jacks. Also unless we are going to make Jack live in the lab Revy's house is the same house that her parents live in right? Or did the super mansion we built somewhere else?
As for Revy's parents being able to raise Jack, I think they could. We are not shoving her into a normal family. Both Revy's parents are veterans and Revy's mom has seen action as being a N5 and working with Anderson. So they know better then Revy on how deal with PDST. We are instead are asking our parents to help take in a abused child soldier something that I don't think that Revy could deal with. I think that Revy's parents can provide a stable environment on a farm away from a lot of people. They also have some experience in raising a nonstandard kid. Granted Revy is not a child solider and Jack will have different problems but they both have proven that they can deal with a weird kip that has special needs.
One other reason for not having Revy adopt Jack is the time it would take we have SCIENCE to do. We can help out and play the role of big sister Revy instead of the parental role. I think the sister role is better suited to Revy and Jack would respond better to having Revy as a friend then as a parent. I just don't see Revy being able to set boundaries and other things that Jack will need to start functioning in the real world.
Security is a good point. Not so much as to handle Jack but to keep all the enemies Revy is making away. We already had someone try to hit our labs so maybe we should beef us security on our house. I don't think that we need to go for a full guard barracks. Maybe four man team with some drone support may be in order. The last thing we want is some trying to stop the humans golden goose by hitting us at our home.
We are going to have to hire a psychologist no matter if Revy or her parents adopts Jacks. Also unless we are going to make Jack live in the lab Revy's house is the same house that her parents live in right? Or did the super mansion we built somewhere else?
As for Revy's parents being able to raise Jack, I think they could. We are not shoving her into a normal family. Both Revy's parents are veterans and Revy's mom has seen action as being a N5 and working with Anderson. So they know better then Revy on how deal with PDST. We are instead are asking our parents to help take in a abused child soldier something that I don't think that Revy could deal with. I think that Revy's parents can provide a stable environment on a farm away from a lot of people. They also have some experience in raising a nonstandard kid. Granted Revy is not a child solider and Jack will have different problems but they both have proven that they can deal with a weird kip that has special needs.
One other reason for not having Revy adopt Jack is the time it would take we have SCIENCE to do. We can help out and play the role of big sister Revy instead of the parental role. I think the sister role is better suited to Revy and Jack would respond better to having Revy as a friend then as a parent. I just don't see Revy being able to set boundaries and other things that Jack will need to start functioning in the real world.
Security is a good point. Not so much as to handle Jack but to keep all the enemies Revy is making away. We already had someone try to hit our labs so maybe we should beef us security on our house. I don't think that we need to go for a full guard barracks. Maybe four man team with some drone support may be in order. The last thing we want is some trying to stop the humans golden goose by hitting us at our home.
If they send a single commando like they tried the first time, they can handle a 4 man fireteam. And that's completely ignoring Cerberus has a lot of reasons to reacquire Jack/put her down and far more assets than 1 or 2 commandos. I don't think a single a ex-special forces and a retired engineer are capable of preventing a super-human child soldier capable of tearing through military grade armor like its paper from killing people if she tantrums. We're talking a child sociopath with enough firepower to pulp people.The whole point is, if we send her to our parents, she's not going to win up living on a farm, she going to wind up living in a secure compound just to make sure she's safe and her tantrums can be maintained.
I am not that worried about Cerberus coming for Jack. They most likely wrote her off and are tiring to make a new super soldier. Jacks rampage though Omega was very public and for a covert force like Cerberus that means bad news. So they most likely abandoned the base Jack was at moved the project somewhere new and are disappearing any links between Jack and their organization. Other spy and black op groups will stay away because I would expect everyone from the Alliance to the shadow broker are keeping an eye on Jack now.
Revy lives with her parents at the farm in the super house that we built. So It doesn't matter if Revy or her parents adopt Jack. They will all be in the same house. I also don't think that keeping Jack in an armed compound for the rest of her life is the answer. Instead letting her live out of town and have a stable environment where you can slowly introduce her to the real world is the way to go. From all the reports Jack doesn't just kill for the hell of it, yes there is a risk but if we are not willing to take that risk we should just take out the amp and ship her off to some child home.
I don't see Revy capable of being a parent. She is to young and scattered right now to deal with a child soldier. I don't think that Revy's parents can stop an attack. I meant that their previous service in the military will help deal with a kid that has PDST. Revy is much better suited to the role of a big sister. We can take her out and help Jack adapt to the world but let Revy's parent set up a stable environment for Jack to recover in.
As for the Security. We have to find a balance. If someone wants to kidnap Jack a four man team in power armor with drone support should stop most forces and cost enough that any benefits that Jack is worth is outweighed by the cost of kidnaping her. If anybody wants Jack enough to take out the security force the only way we could stop them would be at least a full platoon with a Tiger as bodyguards. That means that we would have to confine Jack to the Main PI compound which would make any recovery for Jack a lot harder and would probably become like a prison for her. This could lead Jack to trying to escape from us too. We can't just take Jack and lock her in a gilded cage it will backfire on us and lead to Jack going on anther rampage.
If we want Jack to be in our direct sphere of influence, why not just have her shack up at PI? Setting up a room specifically for her in the barracks would make her about as secure as is feasible, it leaves her the option of going into town, and she has ready access to whatever help we provide. Maybe bring her home for dinner regularly (to give Revy's parents ample opportunity to help. Also, sleep-overs.).
What about my suggestion of approaching them about non-FTL capable liveships? Yes, that would chain them to relay network, but still. Also we should ask about getting access to their electronic specialists / engineers.
As someone else, I think it was @TheEyes , pointed out non-FTL ship are probably too impractical. The powerful Arc Reactor + Repulsor combo does make it not entirely ludicrous since even a simple 1m/s/s acceleration can allow a ship to travel from Earth to Charon in:
T = 2 * sqrt[ 5,038,000,000,000/1 ]
T = ~52 days
Now for a liveship travel time isn't that important since it's not like they are in a rush to go anyway. However it does mean that escape in case of literally any kind of danger is basically impossible.
The simplest solution to the Quarian problem is simply solving their immune problems. Right now it's simply impractical for Quarians to leave the Flotilla because of how dangerous a simple suit tear is and the expense of having sufficiently sterile living conditions. If you remove that however it becomes easy for Quarians to strike out on their own and live on the colonies of various alien races. Hell it makes colonizing vastly simpler since they just need a planet compatible with their type of food rather.
Without that however then the simplest solution is probably something along the lines of what you suggested later on:
Really, for quarians, I think the ideal solution is to build them space stations or small FTL-less ships, and get them an uninhabited system somewhere in Alliance space.
Find a nice uninhabited region of space with resources for mining, have the Quarians either lodge a claim with the Council or just conquer a bit of Terminus space, and build them sufficient space stations to live on.
Absolutely agreed, but I'd go further and suggest that Revy just isn't the right person to adopt Jack. Jack needs a lot of help, and Revy just doesn't have the time to devote to being a parent to a messed up teenager
I suspect that adopting Jack would be an option. However it would almost certainly lock out one, if not both, of our Personal Actions for the foreseeable future.
By Pilium II I meant the anti-tank Pilium with the Improved Warhead tech that we researched 2173-Q3. The regular Pilium can take out a tank; I'm expecting the Pilium II to be able to take out a bunker.
There is a problem with this. There aren't that many Roman names for things out there. We are going through them pretty fast...
Hm. Okay, good point. Still, need to include some anti-armor missiles in that loadout too, especially given that ground-based GARDIANs are a thing, and not something you can take out with Sagitta missiles.
Quarians are a bit better hovering around, "Well I can't justify killing them all or just letting them die but can you go away please we don't want you around at all."
I still don't know how effective those missiles will be. On one hand, they are incredibly cheap. On the other, it's because they can be used as handgun ammo. Honestly, they are more of an fantastic anti Missile system them an offensive one. Mixing Pillum Mk II for anti-tank/bunker/AA tower capabilities and Hydras for fucking shit up should be a good idea.
It's worth noting that a Hydra is simply a rocket carrying a thousand Sagitta. It's basically meant to extend the range of Sagitta to space combat distances. Which is why they are so cheap compared to our other starship missiles.
Still I mixed some Pillums in.
Also, why are repulsor powered ships slower than anti-matter drives?
They aren't. I think you are misunderstanding what's being said in the ship load outs. Ships with Repulsors have smaller, and hence drastically cheaper, FTL drives because Repulsors are powerful enough to compensate.
Basically there are 3 things to consider for a ship's overall speed. First is the FTL drive's LY/day rating, this sets the base speed of the ship before other modifiers. The second is how close to the speed of light (PSL = Percentage of Speed of Light) the ship is willing to hit inside the FTL bubble. The third is the starship's acceleration.
Repulsors provide such insane acceleration that ships powered by them go twice as fast as ships with anti-matter drives. Similarly ships capable of going up to 28PSL rather then 14PSL go twice as fast. Combine the two and a ship can go four times faster then the FTL drive's LY/day rating.
So even though it's core is only rated at 11.25LY/day, which is really a measure of how much Eezo the core has, the Lite Laser Pynda can actually go 45LY/day.
That make sense?
Similarly the Zama can actually go 22.5LY/day because it's got one of our higher quality FTL on it so it can hit 28PSL instead of the standard 14PSL.
I'm assuming you are referring to the Lite Laser Pynda here? In which case you did read my bit about intentionally selling them at such a price that we make a relatively minor gain due to non-monetary reasons right?
Because there is a big difference between 36.3 billion credits and 40 billion credits. Seriously that is a 10% increase in price.
Theoretically we have a massive number of designs due to the Pynda's modular nature. However this is the one that I feel best matches the Alliance's desires in a starship; Cheap but effective.
Still think we could squeeze something more out of HK, if only for the extra reactors.
I like @UberJJK plan but the Zuma should be redesigned. Either the main gun or two secondaries as mac cannons and the rest missile/torp launchers. Because with say missiles licensed to earth the hanar become natural potential clients that the earthcorps will be compelled to lobby to sell to thus decreasing xenophobia on earth. This way we foster some mutual beneficial relations between earth and hanars.
Thing is adding on missile launchers is pretty easy later on but for right now our missiles are so new the Alliance doesn't even have any. No way we are going to get permission to sell them in anytime less then years form now.
Still just to be sure; @Hoyr What does Lawrence think about our chances of being allowed to sell missiles to the Hanar? Don't forget to factor in the possibility of Earthcorps lobbying for it since they'd be the ones making them.
And we want to get a lot of our new support drones for the SA if they have to fight batarian jenisaries.
Hopefully the Tribulus will prove effective next quarter on Anhur. If it does that will almost certainly get a lot of attention by the Alliance. Because being able to just go into an area and open up without concern for civilian casualties is pretty valuable. Plus the whole slave soldiers thing.
So what about adding something like this to the plan
[ ] Talk to the Someone else
-Turian Hierarchy
-Colonel Sindal Rynus
-see if the Turians would be interested in any ships that are approved for sale outside the Systems Alliance
[ ] Offer what
-Quadriga Troop Transports
-Zama
Maybe we want so see if the Turians want any of our stuff. They are all ready buying up arc reactors for some knockoff power armors, so they may want long range frigates and troops transports too. They have a large fleet and army so anything that increases firepower and range should be useful to them. I figure we can keep it low key and contact the military liaison we met on Earth.
Even if they say no to us it should help us politically. It shows that we are willing play ball with them. It may help prevent any backlash if they don't like the fact that PI is selling ships to the Hanar but not them as the primary defenders of Citadel space. It may also help getting our AI license approved by showing that we don't hold hard feelings over the First Contact War. It also should be a big market to sell ships and any other items if the say yes.
See on paper I don't mind the idea. In practice I'm not entirely sure we have sufficient production capacity to handle the demands of the Alliance, Hanar, and ParSec. There is little chance of us being able to supply the Turians before 2176. So it's probably something that needs to wait until this time next year.
I know! Time just seems to fly in this quest. But if you look at the Finance doc we started way back in 2170 and it's now four years later in 2174. So 16 year old Revy has grown up to 20 year old Revy.
So I've made some changes to my previous vote, specifically updating the Quadriga Troop Transports. They are minor enough that I don't think a new version needs to be posted so I've just edited them in.
Still just to be sure; @Hoyr What does Lawrence think about our chances of being allowed to sell missiles to the Hanar? Don't forget to factor in the possibility of Earthcorps lobbying for it since they'd be the ones making them.
"I think people like money and all things told the missiles are not going to bother the alliance that much. Though even if that doesn't fly is there a reason the Hanar couldn't use their own disruptors?"
Theoretically we have a massive number of designs due to the Pynda's modular nature. However this is the one that I feel best matches the Alliance's desires in a starship; Cheap but effective.
I meant don't we have a bunch of other designs already done and named?
Can't we also build ships up to 250m?
You know, I just want a scene where three or four years in the future, our little band of adorable has jumped on a frigate and went adventuring through space, got into some serious trouble and Jack is like "God dammit, I'm going to have to call Mom", and our Doom Fleet shows up to take them home.
No, just ~100 meters to 1 significant figure.
I did a 250 meter destroyer proposal with my New Threat Concept but nobody really liked it so now it's just been gathering dust.
"I think people like money and all things told the missiles are not going to bother the alliance that much. Though even if that doesn't fly is there a reason the Hanar couldn't use their own disruptors?"
Indeed we can. It's just that 250m ships are significantly more expensive, production and cash wise, then 100m ships. Take the Zama, because I already have it's design sitting open in front of me, if we scale her up to 250 the cost jumps dramatically from 18 billion credits and 77.6k production to 210 billion credits and 1.1 million production.
Humanity's reputation isn't any where near as bad as the Krogans or the Quarians* and humanity really wants to be one of the cool kids politically. The Krogans and Quarians aren't cool. Also a lot of the anti-alien feeling is from illogical bullshit and includes all of them, because people like thing simple.
*Krogan reputation is at around the point of, "Well if they all die nothing important was lost, and if it look like there becoming a threat again, kill them all". Quarians are a bit better hovering around, "Well I can't justify killing them all or just letting them die but can you go away please we don't want you around at all." Humanity is more at, "Cranky new people that could really screw things up".
Well, so much for "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," I suppose.
I'm not particularly enamored of the idea that humanity should be basing their opinions of a species on what the other aliens' opinions are, given how quickly they came to the wrong conclusions about humanity itself. In particular, I wouldn't trust the Turians' or Batarians' opinions of another species; neither one seems very reliable judges of character. On the other hand, the Systems Alliance will not have had much chance to personally interact with Quarians on an individual level, much less their governing bodies, so it does seem likely that they will base their opinions on their reputation with other species.
It would also send "we can't defend ourselves but are too stubborn to go to turians for protection" kind of message. Politically it's not a good decision.
I think you've got the political situation backwards. I'm certain that the Alliance has gone to the Turians for protection; I mean, that's the main reason to even bother signing the Treaty of Farixen in the first place, right? Humanity could just as easily have become a Terminus species; the Local cluster/Arcturus Stream relay junctions straddle the border between the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems, after all. The main reason to sign up with the Council in the first place is so we can call on the Turians' military when there's a need; otherwise there doesn't seem to be much reason to bother.
The problem, of course, is that the Turians are dragging their feet and refusing to intervene in humanity's struggles against the Batarianspirates and slavers. Quite the contrast from twenty years ago, when the Turians couldn't wait to start shooting at humanity. If anything, the fact that the Alliance is "forced" to open negotiations with a Terminus species because the Turians are dragging their feet about doing their jobs should be a mark against them, and provide added pressure to come to humanity's aid.
FTL-less ships are mostly useless in a world of eezo-driven FTL. Given the massive increase in travel time to get between planets in a given system, you're better off with modular space stations that can be packed and shipped between locations. Again, kind of the point of Appia/Virgo: if you're going to mine asteroids, it's going to be cheaper and faster to build a mining camp that doesn't take several weeks to get from one mining site to the next.
Anyway, getting the Quarians to patrol our space is a fools errand. The political effort to get the SA to approve it, and then having the Admirality Board of the Quarians approve it is downright prohibitive.
On further review, I agree this could be a political nightmare. Reading between the lines from ME2, the Fleet's civilian governing body seems on the whole even more erratic and capricious than their Admiralty Board, so they may be especially difficult to negotiate with, so they're likely to make a bad impression should high-level negotiations ever take place.
On the other hand, the Quarians really, really do need the living space, to get them out of their overcrowded starships, and our modular space stations can provide them with what they really, really need. And the Alliance really, really needs ships right now to defend against Batarianspirates, and the Quarians can provide them with what they really, really need. For that reason alone I'd expect negotiations to remain at least somewhat cordial, and even if they don't bear fruit then it's at least a foot in the door to future diplomatic channels with the Fleet, something even the crazy Quarian government won't want to mess up given that we're basically the only Citadel species that they haven't yet pissed off in some fashion.
"I think people like money and all things told the missiles are not going to bother the alliance that much. Though even if that doesn't fly is there a reason the Hanar couldn't use their own disruptors?"
The problem with disrupter torpedoes is that they're slow and easily shot down, which is why your best bet for delivering them is to use squadrons of cheap missile-buses to get them closer to the target before firing them. The main reason our anti-ship missiles are such a revolution is that they move fast enough and have enough defenses that they can be fired directly from capital ships and expect to actually hit their target often enough to be cost-effective.
I don't think it's so much that we're basing our opinions on what aliens think, although the general public is likely doing that to a certain extent for the reason you suggested, but more that Humanity wants a chance to get to sit at the big boys table (Citadel Council) and being seen as too friendly with the "wrong sorts" could endanger our chances.
I think you've got the political situation backwards. I'm certain that the Alliance has gone to the Turians for protection; I mean, that's the main reason to even bother signing the Treaty of Farixen in the first place, right? Humanity could just as easily have become a Terminus species; the Local cluster/Arcturus Stream relay junctions straddle the border between the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems, after all. The main reason to sign up with the Council in the first place is so we can call on the Turians' military when there's a need; otherwise there doesn't seem to be much reason to bother.
Actually I'd expect the primary reason for joining the Citadel Races, besides the Asari likely putting it into the Alliance-Hierarchy peace treaty, is trade. Humanity advanced immensely after it came into contact with the Council, jumping from 50c to over 5000c in less then a decade, which almost certainly came from both freely shared scientific information and purchasing then reverse engineering more advanced technology.
Throw in the massive economic boom that would have followed from suddenly having access to a market thousands of time larger then humanity's alone and having countless aliens interested in experiencing human culture, it being the newest thing on the block, and joining the Citadel Races seems quite attractive.
Things like it preventing, or at least reducing the chance, of a member of the Citadel Races, such as the Turians continuing the First Contact War, from attempting to conquer humanity and providing protection from outsiders would have certainly helped but not being particularly emphasized.
The problem, of course, is that the Turians are dragging their feet and refusing to intervene in humanity's struggles against the Batarianspirates and slavers. Quite the contrast from twenty years ago, when the Turians couldn't wait to start shooting at humanity.
I bet what really irritates those in the know would be that the reason why the Turians are dragging their feet is pretty obvious. The Council wants humanity to declare war on the Batarians. It lets them neatly deal with a problem that has been bugging them for over a thousand years IIRC and, prior to Revy, would have weakened the Alliance enough that they wouldn't be a threat for the near future, allowing more time for controlling measures to be put into place
Actually I'd expect the primary reason for joining the Citadel Races, besides the Asari likely putting it into the Alliance-Hierarchy peace treaty, is trade. Humanity advanced immensely after it came into contact with the Council, jumping from 50c to over 5000c in less then a decade, which almost certainly came from both freely shared scientific information and purchasing then reverse engineering more advanced technology.
Throw in the massive economic boom that would have followed from suddenly having access to a market thousands of time larger then humanity's alone and having countless aliens interested in experiencing human culture, it being the newest thing on the block, and joining the Citadel Races seems quite attractive.
Things like it preventing, or at least reducing the chance, of a member of the Citadel Races, such as the Turians continuing the First Contact War, from attempting to conquer humanity and providing protection from outsiders would have certainly helped but not being particularly emphasized.
You basically took the words out of my mouth. Trade is what I expect to be the reason for signing the treaty. Also, the treaty didn't really cost Alliance anything, given that they couldn't afford massive fleets anyway.
The problem with disrupter torpedoes is that they're slow and easily shot down, which is why your best bet for delivering them is to use squadrons of cheap missile-buses to get them closer to the target before firing them.
Warships use disruptors already... the Normandy deliver the killing blow to Nazara with them IIRC. They aren't as good as yours in some ways due to what you mention, but they still work as a warship weapon apparently.
